Hellerwork and Rolfing

It was 1996 and one day I reached into the back seat of my car to pick up a package. I heard something snap in my shoulder and I felt intense pain. I thought little of it and the pain gradually diminished. However, I noticed an increasing loss of shoulder mobility that continued to the point that I couldn’t raise my right arm above my head and any attempt to do so was very painful. I had torn the rotator cuff in my right shoulder. The standard medical treatment for this so-called “frozen shoulder” condition is some combination of cortisone injections, manually breaking up the adhesions under a general anesthetic, and surgery to cut through the adhesions. I chose none of the above.

Instead, I found a person who is trained in Hellerwork, a deep tissue technique that is aimed at structural integration of the body and a return to normal functioning through gradual release of bound up fascia, the membrane sheath that covers all the muscles and organs of the body. Hellerwork is a modification of Rolfing, which has similar goals. Instead of cutting and tearing, the Hellerworker worked to release the adhesions over a period of several months and I have complete mobility of my shoulder and no ill effects that surgery or cortisone injections might have caused.

You can go online to sites such as The Skeptics Dictionary and read about how bogus the claims for Rolfing are. The writer claims that there is no scientific proof of the benefits of Rolfing. That is probably true, but I would point out that there is likely not to be any scientific proof of the benefits of the cortisone injections and surgery that M.D.s prefer. I would ask what “scientific proof” has to do with human health and good functioning. I don’t need a lot of published research to tell me that my body works better than it did before the treatment. The claims of the strict adherents to what I call the “religion” of science are just as bogus as the statements of alternative practitioners who make inflated claims for their methods. The difference is that the claims of alternative practitioners are regulated by law (they can be sued and put out of business), whereas the statements of the adherents to the religion of science are never subjected to such legal strictures. I don’t need scientific experts to tell me how I feel, or to validate that my 71-year-old body works like that of a person half my age. I know that that is true.